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All governments gather info on their citizens
◦ Census, tax records, drivers’ license, birth
certificates, property transfers
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As early as 1934 Nazi Gov. compiled info on
“social deviants”
◦ Jews, Gypsies, ethnic foreigners, people suffering
from genetic diseases, Freemasons
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Jews were the primary target, but not the only ones
Political opponents: communists, socialists, liberals,
trade unionists, clergy
Gypsies: Racially undesirable, did not conform to
society, nomadic
Jehovah’s Witnesses: refusal to army enlistment,
nonparticipation in air-raid drills, refused to give up
their meetings, wouldn’t swear oath to anyone but
God
Homosexuals: exclusively aimed at males, threat to
“Aryan” breeding policy
Freemasons: secret fraternal order, seen as a cover
for a Jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity
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Requirements to leave Germany:
had to relinquish their titles to homes and
businesses
heavy emigration taxes
German authorities restricted how much
money could be transferred abroad from
German banks, and allowed each passenger
to take only ten reichsmarks (about US $4)
out of the country..
Documents required to obtain a Visa link
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March 12, 1938 German troops peacefully
occupied Austria, added it into the Reich
Considered a reunification
Antisemitism already high in Austria
90% of the Austrian Jews lived in Vienna
Jews were attacked on the street, apartments
looted, forced to clean sidewalks & gutters
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By summer 1939 21,000 Jewish businesses
were closed & 5,000 transferred to nonJewish ownership
By outbreak of war in September 1939, 75%
of Austrian Jews had left
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Living space for the members of the Reich
March 1939 - Annexation of the Sudetenland
region of Czechoslovakia
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May 13, 1939 -937 passengers aboard the St
Louis luxury liner left Germany for Cuba
Video on
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_nm.p
hp?MediaId=3544
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Jewish Refugees link
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Evian Conference
◦ July 1938
◦ Delegates from 32 countries and 39 private relief
agencies met in Evian, France to deal with the
international refugee crisis
◦ Called by President Roosevelt
 Hailed by American Jews
 Opponents to conference accused Roosevelt of
forgetting about the depression in the US
◦ Each country professed their sympathy for the
plight of the refugees, yet they also offered
plausible excuses for declining to open their
country’s doors
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Britain: small island with limited room
US: political refuges (glossing over that most
refuges were Jewish)
Australia: “We don’t have a racial problem and we
don’t want to import one”
Canada: none was too many, but did take
farmers
Venezuela: reluctant to disturb the “demographic
equilibrium”
Dominican Republic: offer to receive 100,000
Jews
Solved nothing…..no place for Jews to go
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Hitler: “I can only hope that the other world which
has such deep sympathy for these criminals
(Jews) will at least be generous enough to convert
this sympathy into practical aid. We on our part
are ready to put all these criminals at the
disposal of these countries, even on luxury ships”
“Since in many countries it was recently regarded
as wholly incomprehensible why Germany did not
wish to preserve in its population an element like
the Jews…..it appears astounding that countries
seem in no way anxious to make use of these
elements themselves now that the opportunity
offers.”
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1939 also marked the first time the United
States filled its combined German-Austrian
quota (which now included annexed
Czechoslovakia). However, this limit did not
come close to meeting the demand; by the
end of June 1939, 309,000 German, Austrian,
and Czech Jews had applied for the 27,000
places available under the quota.
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By September 1939, approximately 282,000 Jews had
left Germany and 117,000 from annexed Austria. Of
these, some 95,000 emigrated to the United States,
60,000 to Palestine, 40,000 to Great Britain, and
about 75,000 to Central and South America, with the
largest numbers entering Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and
Bolivia. More than 18,000 Jews from the German
Reich were also able to find refuge in Shanghai, in
Japanese-occupied China.
At the end of 1939, about 202,000 Jews remained in
Germany and 57,000 in annexed Austria, many of
them elderly. By October 1941, when Jewish
emigration was officially forbidden, the number of
Jews in Germany had declined to 163,000. The vast
majority of those Jews still in Germany were
murdered in Nazi camps and ghettos during the
Holocaust.